


Kissing A Fool

by notluvulongtime



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1523618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notluvulongtime/pseuds/notluvulongtime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly's embarrassing secret becomes a sure-fire way for Lestrade to reach her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kissing A Fool

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr, negativevitagen sent me a headcanon for one of those character ask memes: "Molly Hooper +passing the time (when she's not at work)." It gave me an opportunity to finish an idea I'd had a while ago. Usual disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Many thanks to Small_Hobbit for the brit-pick and beta.

*

 

“The ligature marks around her neck, particularly in the anterior region, along with a pooling of the blood in the lower extremities, but not the posterior, suggest a hanging. There appeared to be little struggle –“

 

_She’s so beautiful and she doesn’t know it._

“Forensics found no trace of the rope fibers under her fingernails, which would indicate a sure sign of distress. I would say it’s a suicide, and I’m sure Sherlock would tell you the same if he weren’t so tied up with, well, _Jim_.”

 

The mention of Moriarty (or at least his shadow) shook Lestrade from his admiring stupor. God, it was like she was a different person when Sherlock wasn’t there. No, that wasn’t correct. She seemed different because he got her all to himself. He’d been absent for most of the verbal reports Molly made so there wasn’t much for comparison. Too boring, too tedious for Holmes, perhaps, but for Greg? It was a part and parcel of the work, and having Miss Hooper be so efficient, so almost _Sherlockian_ in the way she wrapped the case up, made the dead feel so much more ‘alive’ than it should’ve been.

 

“Do you have the paperwork?” Greg asked tentatively. Normally, he wouldn’t prod. An obvious suicide (very unlike the one they’d lived with for three years – outside of Molly, who had known the truth, had planned for the fakery – which Greg would never ask about, as keen as he was to know, mostly because by God, she was brilliant for holding such a secret for so long, how she must’ve suffered) wouldn’t require such expediency, but there was something about how nervous she’d seemed when he’d entered just now. She was professional, very focused. But he’d caught her off-guard and the detecting aspect was itching to know what and why.

 

“It’s in my office?” She jerked her thumb in a random direction of where he knew not. “I can go get it for you. It’s more than three-quarters of the way done.”

 

“That’s fine,” Greg pulled on that winsome smile, hoping that it rivaled Sherlock’s for more than the second he needed to convince her to go and come back with the report.

 

She startled a bit; smiled tentatively, the corners of her perfect mouth quivering just slightly. And for a second, Greg’s heart leapt.

 

“I-I’ll go retrieve it, finish it quickly. Won’t take a moment.”

 

*   *   *

 

It really had been only a moment, but it saved Greg from doing something that was ethically against his good nature, so he was doubly glad at her speed. What he’d wanted to do was to take just a small peek at her computer desktop. Molly’d seemed especially intent on hiding what was on it, moving it ever so slightly whenever he was in sightline of it so that it only faced away from him.

 

So while she was gone, all he caught was that her screensaver was composed of a high-resolution photograph, big as life, of George Michael.

 

*   *   *

 

“Stop thinking. It’s distracting.”

 

“What’s that?” Greg looked up from Sherlock’s fancy leather Corbusi-whatever chair, cheek leaning on one hand, fingernail tapping on his teeth.

 

“Your interest in Molly Hooper is boring,” Sherlock waved the notion away with one hand like swatting an annoying mosquito before madly typing once more on one of the five laptops on the floor in front of him, his back to the Deduction Wall.

 

“May be to you, but I quite like her. She’s always been good to us –“

 

“ _Boooooorrrrriiiingg._ ”

 

“Now wait a moment, Sunshine, you didn’t find her help quite so boring when John wouldn’t give you the time of day –“

 

“I’m not talking about _my_ interest in Molly Hooper. She is invaluable to me,” he stopped pecking long enough to look at Greg in defiance, “But your feeble attempts to _not_ express your interest in her are. Boring.” He stabbed the full stop on the keyboard quite imperiously.

 

“All right, Casanova,” Greg leaned forward, a cheeky grin emerging, “I suppose you’ll be my agony aunt and tell me what I’m doing wrong, eh?”

 

Sherlock’s infuriating Mona Lisa smile curved upwards ever so slightly. It was the equivalent of anyone else’s Cheshire cat grin, so rare it was. “Tell me what you know about her.”

 

“She’s beautiful,” Greg sighed. It was the first thing that came to mind and right away, he knew Sherlock would say –

 

“Wrong. That is subjective and not fact. Give me _facts._ And please, let’s not wax rhapsodic about her professional abilities as that is irrelevant –“

 

“I know she has a George Michael screensaver,” Greg blurted it out. This bit of trivia had been on his mind all day, not having had access to a search engine to find out anything about this bloke and that the month’s data limit on his mobile had run out from this skinny bastard’s texting him at all hours of the day and night.

 

Oh, but the reaction Sherlock had. He suddenly beamed and this time, he went back to tapping on a different one of the many keyboards in front of him. Within a minute, he slammed the laptop closed, got up with it, walked over to Greg and handed it to him.

 

“Take it to the kitchen –“

 

“Sherlock, the kitchen table is a biohazard zone.”

 

“Then take it upstairs to John’s old room.”

 

Greg shook the laptop at Sherlock, “What will I find here?”

 

“Molly gave me a copy of her hard drive. To help me with anything pertaining to Moriarty.”

 

“Not that it matters to you, but to her, he’s still ‘Jim from I.T.’ Y’know, Sherlock, it’s unethical to give me access to this. She’s given you permission to look at her data, but not me.”

 

“You’re helping me with this case, aren’t you?” Sherlock’s eyebrow quirked up.

 

Greg sighed in exasperation, “Yes, but –“

 

“You represent lawful policing. I’m sure you’re more familiar with toeing the line than even I am.”

 

“You’re a bad liar.”

 

“Only when I do it on purpose,” Sherlock now looked irritated, “Stop wasting both our time and Do. Your. Research.”

 

*   *   *

 

It was unseemly and Greg hated how his revulsion to prying into Molly’s personal hard drive converted itself to utter fascination and admiration back to mental self-flagellation – all within a matter of minutes, depending on which files he was looking at.

 

Sherlock was nothing if not thorough. And he’d managed to create an entire set of folders and subfolders of everything that was on Molly’s home laptop, some of which Greg _knew_ she didn’t want anyone to see (She writes fanfiction? What’s that? And for a show called _Glee_. Is that American? What is ‘slash’?) and others that just made his heart sing with renewed adoration (She loves Bowie! I know who he is. Her favorite actor is someone named Rupert Graves. Must look him up, but not now.).

 

But really, Greg was more interested in finding anything she loved about George Michael. He’d cheated a little and before prying into Molly’s files, he’d made good use of the search engine and caught up on the 50 year-old pop star (hmm, same age as me; certainly _not_ same profession). Greg knew that George’d had his heyday in the 80s and 90s, first as a co-lead singer of a bubblegum group called Wham! before going off on his own. By accessing some YouTube videos, Greg found the younger Michael’s smile a bit too bright, so he tried viewing the material of his solo years – which wasn’t half bad, he had to admit. Particularly the album _Listen Without Prejudice: Vol. 1_ (Where’s volume two? That video with the models is rather catchy. Lots of Beatlesque type stuff here. Jazz. Some bossanova. Hmmm.).

 

In fact, he found himself refraining from exploring 99% of what was on Molly’s hard drive and instead concentrated on what was on her iTunes playlist. It was largely eclectic, covering many decades and genres. But the interest, her core admiration, seemed to return to this gay pop star with an admittedly good voice, sometimes embarrassing tabloid celebrity past, but in the end, it was music that stuck with her for most of her life. If Greg did the maths right, Molly had loved Wham! when she was no more than twelve or thirteen. Perhaps it was nostalgia that kept her loyal to this kind of music, who knew. But at least it was bearable to listen to; it wasn’t the equivalent of cats wailing in heat.

 

Finally, knowing that she thought this fanlove was embarrassing made his heart warm to her even more. He sat back, staring at the screen, thought for a few seconds and began to type.

 

Sure enough, George Michael was starting a tour in a month – _Symphonica_ , it was called, where everything in his past catalogue would be played acoustically, with a large orchestra to back him. The shows at Wembley Stadium were sold out and from the internet history Sherlock had gathered, he could see that she’d tried to bid on overpriced tickets on eBay and failed miserably.

 

Greg wracked his brain and suddenly his face lit up with excitement. Part of working at Scotland Yard meant that his network reached far and wide. People owed him favors, but he rarely called them in. This time, he was pulling out all the stops.

 

*   *   *

 

She was actually on the back of his motorcycle as they weaved through traffic. It was really against everything he believed in, that he had her blindfolded under the helmet, but in order for this first date to succeed (and not scare her off), it had to be a surprise. So the usually devil-may-care post-workday D.I. took his time, signaled properly and obeyed all the traffic laws. He was carrying precious cargo and was doubly worried – now that there was no turning back - that he’d made the wrong move entirely.

 

Sherlock, of course, deduced right away what he was up to when Greg had come down from John’s old room, whistling “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”

 

“I could call Mycroft for the tickets, you know.”

 

“Nope, Sunshine. I want to do this on my own.”

 

But none of that mattered anymore. Greg and Molly were now in front of the entrance to Wembley and since it was too dangerous to do otherwise, he positioned her in front of the marquee and took off the blindfold.

 

She was disoriented by the sudden influx of bright light but as her eyes adjusted and lifted upwards, Molly’s mouth drew back in what was complete and utter shock. She was still breathing (her chest is moving up and down; that’s good, right?), but what emanated from her lips was a breathy whistle, almost like a strangled scream –

 

“I’m sorry,” Greg sputtered forth, “I happened to see your screensaver one time in the morgue. I didn’t know if you had tickets, so –“

 

She covered the space between them, took both his cheeks in her hands and kissed him soundly.

 

It was deep, it was pronounced, and it was _passionate_. And Greg wanted it to last forever, but she pulled away almost as quickly as she’d attacked him.

 

“Oh, God! I’m sorry!”

 

“No,” Greg gasped and took a chance, just pulling her in, placing his arms around her waist and meeting her forehead with his, “Please don’t apologize. Especially if you meant it.”

 

His eyes were closed and she responded by tilting his head back up to hers. “I –“

 

“I know you love Sherlock and-and-and I can’t possibly be as clever as he is but I-I really do care a great deal for you and even if nothing comes of it, I want you to be happy and to enjoy yourself tonight with music you love. That’s all.”

 

Her cheeks were impossibly shiny and rosy and gorgeous. And her _smile_. “Greg Lestrade, the only thing you’re not clever about is how handsome you are. How much I admire you. I just had no idea you would ever…I mean… _me_?”

 

“Of _course_ you; you’re positively perfect and wonderful and I just would never in a million years think that this old man would…” Greg was completely flummoxed, but God, was he the happiest man on the planet at the moment. Certainly happier than if he’d ever gotten that punk band he co-founded together in the 80s back together, “Well, we could stand here all night and argue the merits of finding one another attractive or we can watch this concert. What do you say?”

 

Molly went for him again and this time the kiss convinced Greg he couldn’t have done a better thing, “I’m so glad I get to see him with _you_.”


End file.
